Legend:

Widgets are one of the most useful features added to TurboGears 0.9. Unfortunately, they're also one of the least-documented. This tutorial will explain why widgets are so useful, and show you how to create your own lightweight widgets, with a bonus introduction to the standard !DataGrid widget.

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= The Fooball Application =

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We're going to create a web application that tracks statistics for the entirely fictitious sport of "Fooball". Fooball is a very simple game: players on teams do unspecified things to score as many points as possible before the end of the game. The team with the most points at the end wins. The player with the most points at the end gets lucrative sponsorship deals, but that's outside the scope of this tutorial.

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The front page will contain a list of teams and a list of all league players and their stats. The list of teams will contain links to individual team pages, each listing stats for the players on that team. Simple enough.

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I'll assume that you know enough TurboGears to "quickstart" the application; if not, see the TurboGears documentation. I'm going to quickstart the application using 'fooball' for both the application and module name, and I'll assume that you've properly configured the database connection in your "dev.cfg" file (I'm using an SQLite backend on Windows XP).

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Now, let's define our data model in {{{model.py}}}:

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{{{

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#!python

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import datetime

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class Player(SQLObject):

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name = StringCol(length=40, alternateID=True)

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birthdate = DateCol(notNull=True)

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team = ForeignKey('Team')

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points = IntCol(default=0)

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class Team(SQLObject):

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city = StringCol(length=20, notNull=True)

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nickname = StringCol(length=20, notNull=True, alternateID=True)

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players = MultipleJoin('Player')

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#!NewsFlash

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This wiki page has been migrated to the new docs site currently at

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http://docs.turbogears.org/1.0/IntroductionToWidgets

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}}}

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From the model, you can see that teams are uniquely identified by their nickname (although a city can host multiple teams), and all players forever belong to one team (Fooball players haven't discovered free agency yet, to the delight of Fooball team owners).

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We'll create the database using "tg-admin sql create", and define some data using "tg-admin shell". You could use !ModelDesigner and Catwalk to do this, but for simplicity we'll use the command line tools.

Good enough for now. (Any resemblance to real teams, players, or final scores is purely coincidental, but I'm sure you knew that.)

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Now we'll cobble up a simple front page by editing the body of {{{\fooball\fooball\templates\welcome.kid}}}:

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{{{

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<h1>International Fooball League Stats</h1>

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<h2>Teams</h2>

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<table border="1">

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<tr>

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<th>City</th>

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<th>Team Name</th>

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</tr>

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<tr py:for="team in teams">

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<td py:content="team.city"/>

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<td py:content="team.nickname"/>

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</tr>

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</table>

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<h2>Players</h2>

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<table border="1">

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<tr>

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<th>Name</th>

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<th>Birthdate</th>

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<th>Team</th>

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<th>Points</th>

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</tr>

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<tr py:for="player in players">

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<td py:content="player.name"/>

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<td py:content="player.birthdate"/>

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<td py:content="player.team"/>

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<td py:content="player.points"/>

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</tr>

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</table>

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}}}

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Since our template uses the {{{teams}}} and {{{players}}} variables, add them to the Root controller's index method in {{{controllers.py}}}:

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{{{

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#!python

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from model import Team, Player

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class Root(controllers.RootController):

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@expose(template="fooball.templates.welcome")

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def index(self):

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return dict(teams=Team.select(),

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players=Player.select())

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}}}

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= The First Attempt =

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Now, start the app, and take a look at the front page:

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***screenshot***

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Ugh. Well, the teams look fine, but the players show an ugly SQLObject representation for their team name. We could fix this by changing the {{{player.team}}} to {{{players.team.city}}}, but then we'd have to make sure we do it everywhere we want to show a {{{Player.team}}}. And make sure we always do it the same way. That's a recipe for mistakes. When programming, it's best to follow the maxim, "Don't Repeat Yourself".

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Instead, we'll tell the {{{Team}}} object how to display itself by adding a string-izing method to the class:

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{{{

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#!python

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def __str__(self):

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return "%s %s" % (self.city, self.nickname)

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}}}

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And look: reuse! We can get rid of that ugly "City/Name" table by doing the same thing there in the {{{welcome.kid}}} template:

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{{{

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<h2>Teams</h2>

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<table border="1">

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<tr>

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<th>Team</th>

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</tr>

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<tr py:for="team in teams">

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<td py:content="team"/>

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</tr>

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</table>

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}}}

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***screenshot***

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Much better. Now let's make pages for each team. A new controller method will do the trick:

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{{{

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#!python

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@expose(template="fooball.templates.team")

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def team(self, team_id, *args, **kw):

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return dict(team=Team.get(int(team_id)))

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}}}

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With a new template called "team.kid", whose body looks like this:

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{{{

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<h1 py:content="team"/>

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<h2>Players</h2>

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<table border="1">

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<tr>

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<th>Name</th>

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<th>Birthdate</th>

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<th>Points</th>

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</tr>

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<tr py:for="player in team.players">

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<td py:content="player.name"/>

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<td py:content="player.points"/>

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<td py:content="player.birthdate"/>

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</tr>

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</table>

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}}}

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And a way to get to the team page, courtesy of a quick change to the welcome template:

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{{{

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<h2>Teams</h2>

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<table border="1">

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<tr>

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<th>Team</th>

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</tr>

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<tr py:for="team in teams">

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<td><a href="${'/team/%d' % team.id}">${team}</a></td>

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</tr>

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</table>

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}}}

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And...

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***welcome screenshot***

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Ok, let's look at the team page for Pittsburgh:

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***team screenshot***

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Whoops. Haha. I don't think "Big Bob" was born on 0, and he certainly didn't earn 1983-03-02=1975 points. When I typed the second table, I switched the order of two columns.

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This again illustrates the "Don't Repeat Yourself" point. Every time you write the same code again, you run the risk of introducing bugs. And if you want to change the way the table looks (say, by showing 'age' instead of 'birthday', you have to repeat the change each time.

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= Enter the Widget =

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Rather than retype (or copy and paste) that table every time we want to show a grid of players, let's create a reusable widget. We'll create the simplest possible widget that we can use in both the front page and the team page. We'll add it to {{{controllers.py}}} for now:

And that's it. Not a drop of code to be found. You'll note that the template references "value", which is the standard TurboGears name used to apply data to the widget. I also added a CSS class to the widget; I like to do that because it's easier to apply per-widget CSS styles down the road.

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Let's provide the widget in the controllers:

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{{{

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#!python

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players_widget = SimpleRosterWidget()

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class Root(controllers.RootController):

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@expose(template="fooball.templates.welcome")

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def index(self):

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return dict(teams=Team.select(),

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players=Player.select(),

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players_widget=players_widget)

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@expose(template="fooball.templates.team")

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def team(self, team_id, *args, **kw):

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return dict(team=Team.get(int(team_id)),

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players_widget=players_widget)

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}}}

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And change the welcome template to use the widget:

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{{{

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<h2>Players</h2>

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${players_widget.display(players)}

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}}}

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***screenshot***

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= Template Parameters =

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This looks good so far. Let's do the same to the team template:

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{{{

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<h2>Players</h2>

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${players_widget.display(team.players)}

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}}}

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***screenshot***

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Hmm. Well, it works, but it seems a bit silly to specify the team column for the team roster, since it will always be the same. We could create separate widgets for each page, but that defeats the reusability of widgets. So let's add a parameter to the {{{SimpleRosterWidget}}} class to disable the team column:

* We added a class attribute called {{{template_vars}}} ('''NOTE''' 0.9a5 will call this same attribute {{{params}}}. It will issue a {{{DeprecationWarning}}} to remind you that you should update your code). When TurboGears renders the template, it looks for this attribute. Any attribute names in this list that exist on the template instance will be added to the variables provided to the template. So at render time, if the template has a {{{with_team}}} attribute, the template will be able to access it.

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* We added an {{{__init__}}} method that calls the parent class ({{{Widget}}}, in this case), and stores the {{{with_team}}} argument (if any). Since we don't want to worry about what the base class is, we use Python's {{{super}}} function, and since we don't want to worry about what arguments might be there, we use {{{*args}}} and {{{**kw}}} to pass along any extra positional or keyword arguments to the base class.

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* Since we've added "with_team" to the template_vars, we can use its value to determine whether or not to display the team name:

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then inside the team template:

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{{{

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<h2>Players</h2>

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${players_widget.display(team.players, with_team=False)}

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}}}

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***screenshot***

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Great. Now we're done.

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But, as Mr. Jobs is so fond of saying, there's "one more thing..."

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= Now, Don't Do That! =

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Now that you've seen how to create your own table-based, customizable widget, I'm going to tell you not to do that. Creating your own widgets is a fast and easy way to create reusable and customizable user interfaces, but if you're just doing a simple table layout like our roster grid, the TurboGears widgets library already gives you a great, pre-made widget: {{{DataGrid}}}.

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To use {{{DataGrid}}}, just change the {{{index}}} and {{{team}}} controller methods:

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{{{

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#!python

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class Root(controllers.RootController):

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@expose(template="fooball.templates.welcome")

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def index(self):

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player_fields = [('Name', 'name'),

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('Birth Date', 'birthdate'),

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('Team', 'team'),

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('Points', 'points')]

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return dict(teams=Team.select(),

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players=Player.select(),

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players_widget=widgets.DataGrid(fields=player_fields))

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@expose(template="fooball.templates.team")

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def team(self, team_id, *args, **kw):

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player_fields = [('Name', 'name'),

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('Birth Date', 'birthdate'),

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('Points', 'points')]

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return dict(team=Team.get(int(team_id)),

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players_widget=widgets.DataGrid(fields=player_fields))

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}}}

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Now you can delete your {{{SimpleRosterWidget}}}, and voila! Instant table widget:

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***screenshot***

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Note that we didn't need to change the Kid template at all. Like our {{{SimpleRosterGrid}}}, {{{DataGrid}}} is derived from {{{widgets.Widget}}}. That means that it gets called the same way (via the display call). It uses the {{{fields}}} parameter to decide what to display. {{{fields}}} is a list of tuples; each tuple contains the header string and either a string or a callable object (like a function, for example).

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If you provide a string, the {{{DataGrid}}} uses it as an attribute name on data object. If you provide a callable object, {{{DataGrid}}} calls it, passing the data item as the only parameter. The callable can return either a string (which is escaped and displayed by Kid) or an {{{Element}}} (from the elementtree library), which is rendered and then displayed.

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That's a mouthful. Let's figure it out by converting our hand-coded teams table on the front page to a {{{DataGrid}}}. The nicely-styled players table is making it look unfashionably plain, anyway.

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Add this to the imports of controllers.py:

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{{{

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#!python

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from elementtree import ElementTree

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}}}

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Now, just before the Root class definition, add a function to create a link ('a') {{{Element}}} from a {{{Team}}} object:

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{{{

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#!python

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def makeTeamLink(team):

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link = ElementTree.Element('a',

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href='/team/%d' % team.id)

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link.text = team

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return link

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}}}

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Add the teams widget to the index controller. Note that I'm using the {{{makeTeamLink}}} function itself as the field value for the team name, and not a call to the function:

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{{{

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#!python

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class Root(controllers.RootController):

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@expose(template="fooball.templates.welcome")

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def index(self):

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team_fields = [('Name', makeTeamLink)]

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player_fields = [('Name', 'name'),

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('Birth Date', 'birthdate'),

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('Team', 'team'),

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('Points', 'points')]

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return dict(teams=Team.select(),

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teams_widget=widgets.DataGrid(fields=team_fields),

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players=Player.select(),

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players_widget=widgets.DataGrid(fields=player_fields))

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}}}

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Now just make one quick change to the welcome template:

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{{{

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<body>

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<h1>International Fooball League Stats</h1>

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<h2>Teams</h2>

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${teams_widget.display(teams)}

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<h2>Players</h2>

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${players_widget.display(players)}

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}}}

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***screenshot***

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That's pretty. And we've taken just about all the HTML out of our controller, which is even better.

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Incidentally, if the visual style of {{{DataGrid}}} looks familiar, it is: it uses the same CSS-based styling as CatWalk. If you like that style, you get it for free just by using the {{{DataGrid}}}. If not, you can always change it in your web app's own CSS.

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For example, I like links to look like links, and the default CSS fragment for DataGrid removes the underline decoration. To fix this, just add a line to your application's stylesheet:

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{{{

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.grid td a {text-decoration:underline}

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}}}

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= Conclusion =

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Widgets are a powerful addition to the TurboGears tool set. They ''can'' be complex to write and use (especially when you get into the "form" and "fastdata") libraries, but they don't ''have'' to be. Wrapping custom display elements in simple widgets is quick and easy, and can help you develop faster and with fewer errors and display inconsistencies.